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« on: August 20, 2009, 10:37:39 pm »
Urist McBoatTrousers sat on the docks by the edge of the underground river, hanging a Cave Spider Silk fishing pole (as in the pole was made of silk) over the edge of the marble docks. he tugged the line a little, and was surprised to find that it tugged back. Why, good old Urist had found a carp, and the fish was nibbling away at the bait!
Pulling back his dirty Kitten Leather Cap from his eyes, he tugged even harder on the line. The carp responded with a tug that dragged the poor fisherdwarf to the edge of the docks. he let go of his prized artifact fishing pole just in time to save himself, but the greedy carp gobbled the fishing pole whole.
Urist was angered beyond reason (not that he had any to begin with.) thinking hard, he devised a huge project that would take days of work to complete. and so Urist gathered up one of the many spare pickaxes and got to work, digging a channel from the magma vent all the way down to the river, locking away the molten rock by means of an Olivine Mechanism ( not a capitalization error) and a very unlucky puppy.
With the project finished, Urist went down to the river to see if the carp remained. It did, and so he pulled the lever that he had installed on the docks and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
after a month of sleepless nights the magma rolled slowly down the incline to the river, striking it with a hiss. mist roiled and filled the room aroud Urist, obscuring his already useless vision ( a month of sobriety will do that to a dwarf.) stumbling about on the docks, and thinking happy thoughts of the mist and the carp, he fell of the edge into the water, hitting and wouding the carp.
The carp was not happy about its home being covered with magma and obsidian, so it defended it's home the only way it knew how. by thrashing about and throwing poor Urist back on shore.
Urist clambered back onto wobbleing, sober feet. forgetting entirely about the carp he had spent months working on, he stumbled off to the kitchen to see if he could find some plump helmet stew he could steal.
The carp, however had a very bad day. with his spine broken, the poor carp was trapped, and his home was being filled with magma. thinking quickly, the carp called out to his friends, who promptly ingnored him in favor of swimming headfirst into the magma.
***
After years spent engraving that masterfuly made Cave Spider Silk fishing pole into every wall he could find, Urist McBoatTrousers went back to the cavern wich had once been a river, but was diverted into an elven caravan for fun.
sitting on some old marble docks, the fisher dwarf spotted something in the obsidian. he hopped down onto the solid floor, and picked up his old pole, still made of silk, and still just as flimsy.
And he was happy.
The carp was not.
